Using the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to BigCommerce

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
3. Click Create API Account.
4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData BigCommerce Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce
Description = My Description
OAuthClientId = YourClientId
 OAuthClientSecret = YourClientSecret
 StoreId = 'YourStoreID'
 CallbackURL = 'http://localhost:33333'
InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH

Execute SQL to BigCommerce

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce};OAuthClientId = YourClientId; OAuthClientSecret = YourClientSecret; StoreId = 'YourStoreID'; CallbackURL = 'http://localhost:33333';InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = 'Bob'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.FirstName, row.LastName)

After connecting to BigCommerce in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to BigCommerce data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].